In The Heat of the Night
by MagpieDreamer
Summary: Sheyla Futurefic: John considers what he and Teyla have started.


**In The Heat of the Night**

AN: This is the third in a series of vignettes I'm writing set thirty or so years into the future of SG:A. The first two are 'Poetry in Motion' and 'Our Little SuperStar', which you might want to read before you read this one, though it's not essential. This one deals with theas yet un-directly-touched relationship between Teyla and John, and was written pretty late at night, in one head-ache inducing run, so appologies for type-os etc, in advance. Have fun, and please leave reviews!

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As far as father-daughter bonding went, John was thankful that, in many respects, both his daughters were very similar to him.

They both liked things that went fast. Very fast, extremely fast, or just plain stupidly fast. It was all the same to his two girls, and this, at least, was something John could relate to.

Probably the first proper, vaguely adult conversation he'd had with Matti, once she'd gotten old enough to speak beyond burbling nonsensically, was about how to fly a puddle jumper. She'd promptly demanded to come with him on his next flight, something Teyla hadn't been particularly happy with.

Unfortunately, Matti was far smarter than her parents gave her credit for. How many four years olds could get on board a puddle jumper and hide under a seat until you were too far away from home to make turning back worth it?

Ford had suggested that this was the reason why raising a family on a military base was not such a great idea. He was probably right.

But it hadn't been a military base much longer after that, anyway.

So, yeah, there were a few things he could talk to his daughters about. He was glad. McKay had absolutely nothing to talk to _his_ daughter about. Or Rodney believed that he didn't. Though it was fairly obvious to everyone else that the scientist and his daughter were far more alike than either cared to admit.

There were days, however, when John worried he was running out of conversations to have with his children. There were only so many times you could discuss how cool breaking the sound barrier was, or how drunk you needed to be before you took a skate-board down the side of one of Atlantis's towers (though those conversations needed to be held far out of the earshot of the girls' mother). And they weren't going to be teenagers much longer. Matti was eighteen. _Eighteen_! Somehow she'd turned from a giggling, tom-boyish ten year old into a strong, determined and terrifyingly beautiful young woman, within what felt like the blink of an eye. He hadn't even realised how close to being grown up she truly was until last week, when he'd caught her in the company of a certain young man, of the Weir-McKay variety, and realised that he no longer had the right to go in and break it up before his little girl got hurt.

She wasn't_ little_ anymore.

Even Rista – pretty, girly, sweet-as-sugar little Ristrabell – had become frighteningly mature lately. She was being helpful around the family home. She was no longer picking fights with her sister. She had demanded an 'adult' conversation about her allowance, and actually negotiated a raise for herself. Stranger still to witness, she was looking more and more like her mother everyday. While Matti was a fairly even mix of father and mother, Rista now looked so much like Teyla that it was actually quite startling. John had been watching her train, and suddenly been dumped backwards about thirty years to when he'd have done the same with his wife, admiring from afar, long before their relationship had turned romantic. He'd had to shake off the flashback, and been almost surprised when he remembered it wasn't his wife he was watching.

It was Teyla who, late one sleep-deprived, star-gazing night, had somehow put her finger directly onto his deepest fears, when she had confessed, "one day, I fear I might wake up and not know who they are anymore."

John had been surprised, though somewhat comforted, that they felt the same way. Somehow, he had always supposed that Teyla had less trouble keeping tabs on the people their daughters were becoming than he did. She was a woman, after all. Add that to the wraith gene that kept them hot-wired into a three-way telepathic communications network, and Teyla had more in common with their children than John did.

But no. At least now John new he still had plenty in common with his wife. Late at night, when sleep had abandoned them or point blank refused to come, they could lie wrong-ways on the bed, feet on the pillows, duvet discarded in the heat of the summer and the nightmares, and wonder about who their girls were; worry and plot and plan and guess. Having children had hauled their relationship to breaking point several times in the past; now it was making them stronger again.

"God, it is way too hot…" John moaned, covering his face with his hands.

Teyla, beside him, blew up into her fringe, "I know."

The bed had been stripped of sheets. Blankets tossed to the floor, pillows kicked aside, excess pyjama layers flung away. The smell of sweat and summer and salt from the sea, not far from their window, was heavy in the room.

"Are the girls asleep?" John asked.

Teyla frowned slightly, clicking into the link she had to her daughters, "Rista is sleeping soundly, but Matti…" she stopped, frown deepening, "Matti has tuned me out."

John sat up, "well that's _never_ good. What's she doing at two in the morning that she doesn't want you to know about?"

"Probably stealing food," Teyla waved her husband's concerns away. "It isn't anything serious. If she intended to do something dangerous, she'd leave a guilt signature strong enough for me to trace. She's fine."

"Matti doesn't always consider the stuff she does dangerous," John pointed out.

"She's _fine_," Teyla replied, firmly.

John stayed sitting up, frowning. He was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of thin cotton pants. Sweat was seeping through his steadily-greying hair, sticking it to his forehead and the back of his neck. Even the cooling sea-breeze breathing through the open balcony door was offering little relief to the heat, and now he had an excuse to be awake, he wasn't letting go of it.

He slid off his bed, and heading for the balcony.

Teyla sighed softly to herself. She new very well where her daughter was; she had no need for Wraith telepathy to work that one out. But she wasn't about to tell her husband that his eldest daughter was out on a midnight stroll with the boy next door. He'd probably do something stupid like go stomping after them and drag Matti back to her quarters.

Teyla sat up and turned so her feet wrested on the tiled floor. She wasn't dressed in much either, and was close to pulling off the tank-top and boxers (all that were left of her pyjamas) as well. The heat was getting to her. It was getting so they'd taken off their wedding rings, (something they only ever did when absolutely necessary) because the sweat was getting trapped under them. She could see them now, through the gloom, sitting on the bedside table; two simple bands of gold, with the split pieces of a blue birth stone, from earth, embedded in the metal. The necklaces were there too; braided leather, each with a light ceramic tile hanging from them, their names carved onto them in Athosion symbols, the names of their children carved into the back.

They'd carried both Earth and Athosion traditions into the marriage, seeing this as about the only way to satisfy both cultures. It about worked.

After a few minutes, she joined her husband on the balcony. The night air was slightly cooler than it was in their room, but not enough to relieve the heat-irritation she was suffering from. John had turned his back to the sea view, and was staring up at the city, as if, if he looked long and hard enough, his daughter would be transported back to him through shear force of will.

Teyla let her fingertips graze his arm, turning her hand slowly so that, as she got to his shoulder, her knuckles were exposed to his skin. Normally she'd slide easily into his arms, but tonight the heat made much more than this tentative contact nigh-on unbearable. Sheppard reached out, without looking, and brushed the side of her hand with his own, running his thumb along hers. He slipped his fingers between her own, and drew her palm to his lips, pressing a kiss over the scar where she had, many years earlier, been sent flying by a wraith and broken her fall onto heavy gravel with her hands. The wound had stood open for weeks, leaving her unable to pick things up or even hold something properly without sending needles of pain through her wrist. So he'd done everything for her.

He kept her hand against his lips, as if he were trying to silence himself. Teyla flexed her fingers, resting them on his cheek, which was almost feverish with heat. She touched his nose with her thumb.

John felt himself laugh, and let her hand go. "You sure you don't know where Matti is?"

She didn't answer, watching him with unfathomable dark eyes. Teyla might have aged thirty years since he'd first met her, (she was still beautiful) but those eyes hadn't gained a single flaw. They still hid unimaginable depths of existence. They still called him in, to an inexorable, blissful end.

"She's growing up," Teyla spoke softly.

"Yeah," John agreed.

"They both are."

"I know."

"It is… so strange…"

"Hey, I've been weirded out by the whole 'dad' thing from the minute they were born," John held up his hands, "it never stopped being strange for me, here."  
Teyla smiled slightly. She turned, looking out over the ocean, closing her eyes against the humidity. Once, many years ago, not long after they were married, on a night as hot as this one, they had stood on the balcony of the quarters they occupied then. It was round the other side, but not much further up. They'd stood in silence, contemplating the silvery mass of water below, heat rolling off their bodies, and then looked at each other. A single glimpse of John's eyes had told her what he was about to do, and she knew she was about to do the same thing.

As one, pyjamas, top and bottoms had been disposed of. Up, onto the balcony wall, hand in hand, mental count to three, and then… jump.

The air, rushing past them, half blind in the starlit night, she still remembered, and then the water, wonderfully cool, terrifyingly black around them. She'd tasted salt, and air. John, holding tight to her, the odd danger and the wonderful thrill. They'd found shelter in the shallows, where a metal rim around the base of one of Atlantis's foundations sloped into the water, and here they'd stayed.

She had a sneaking suspicion that that was the night Matti had been conceived.

"You remember, right?" John asked, softly. He'd turned to look down at the water too, one hand touching her shoulder, "that night?"  
Teyla nodded. "I remember."

John kissed just under her ear, then let his head rest on her shoulder, thinking. Teyla leaned against him, ignoring the heat.

"We started something, Teyla," John told her, after a while. "We started something, but I don't know what. We had our lives, and we knew them, and we knew where we were going, or we tried to. Then we started two more lives, and they're gonna wind away from us, because we can't know, can we? We can't know where they're going."

"No," Teyla agreed. "But we can watch. And we can help. And we can try to make sure they are well when they get there."

"Guess that has to be enough, huh?" John asked, softly.

"Just about," Teyla agreed, catching sight of the stars over head, and wondering if her parents, had they been alive to see her grow, would ever have suspected where she would be now. "Just about enough."


End file.
